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treated lower than men. Haq (2003) stated that
usually women with disabilities are considered
as weak, inactive, inefficient, and not suitable in
economically productive roles. Magdalene, Ang,
Ramayah & Vun (2013) also stated that accord-
ing to Roberts (1996), in some ethnic, women are
similar to disabled people because they usually will
get misconceptions, prejudice and also discrimina-
tion. Additionally, it is also hard for women to get
promotion opportunities and they usually receive
lower income.
In terms of employment, Haq (2003) stated
that other than their disability, women also faced
double discrimination, because of their gender.
In Malaysia, usually the income for single women
with disabilities is $470 less than women without
disabilities, which are $1,000 per month for disabil-
ity women worker and at the same time $300 less
per month than men who has disabilities. However
for married women who have disabilities, their
income is $100 less than disabled married men who
have disabilities. As compared to men with dis-
abilities, mostly in terms of employment, women
with disabilities work in managerial, professional
occupations and also in higher ranking in service
with higher rates in wages.
Other than that, Haq (2003) also stated that
until recently, there are no statistics of gender
specific disabled worker available in Malaysia.
According to Department of Welfare Services,
there are 73, 353 people who has different types
of disabilities, registered in their department. They
estimated that about 210,000 or 1% of the total 21
million Malaysia populations have disabilities. In
1997, it is recorded about 538 people that have dis-
abilities were employed in public sector. While in
1998, according to the Labour Department, 3,309
people employed in private sector which conclude
that within this time, only 5.24% of people with
disabilities are employed in Malaysia. Other than
that, it is predicted that the rate of employment for
men with disabilities is higher than women with
disabilities.
It is also believed that compared to women,
more men with disability are hired in workforce
rather than women with disability whether they
are part-time worker or under employment. Haq
(2003) stated that according to Bowe (1984) about
42% of men with disabilities are in the workforce
meanwhile only 24% of women with disabilities
are in the workforce.
This is clearly unfair when more women with
disabilities are unemployed, or they only gain
part-time job with few benefits or low wage works.
Despite of being disabled, employment are also
very important to women with disabilities because
of three reasons. First, employment is important
for their living cost and their own saving. Second,
employment is important for their dignity and
as their contribution to the society and lastly for
the integration into the mainstream non-disabled
community.
2.1.2
Physical appearance
According to Poria, Reichel and Brandt (2011), for
anyone who had disabilities, physical appearance
also had been identified as one of the important
and meaningful explanation towards attitudes and
communication in hospitality and tourism indus-
try. This is supported by Gröschl (2006) which
already stated that self-presentation skills, aes-
thetic, appearance and physical looks of custom-
ers towards employees are very important in this
industry. It is different towards those employees in
hard or technical industries. Gröschl (2006) also
concluded that sometimes it is one of barrier in
selection criterion as people with disabilities who
being limited in their aesthetic and self-presenta-
tion skills to work in hospitality industry.
2.1.3
Misconceptions
Attitudes cannot be predictable in every person.
Some people have different attitudes reflected by
their condition, emotion and others. Some peo-
ple that have disability will be ignored and will
become victims in crime such as harassment by
others. Commissioner to the Australian Net-
work on Disability (2011) stated that one of the
important obstacles to employment is misconcep-
tions about disability and negative attitudes by
employers.
Based on journal from Davis and Olson (2012),
disability persons always face the problem of being
ignored. They did not get the chance to prove their
skills in specific job. Employers usually assume that
this kind of person cannot perform the job thus
the disabled person did not manage to show their
skills. Other than that, according to Haq (2003)
sometimes the attitudes of the employer can cause
barrier to employment.
According to Accessible Ontario Customer Serv-
ice (2012), when employers hiring disabled work-
ers, they need to discuss with the disabled workers
about changes that were required. Employers need
to think about the changes that suits to the disabled
workers and also to other workers. In this case, they
cannot assume that disabled workers must not do
certain work. Instead, employer needs to carefully
observe the disabled workers ability to do their job.
Other than that, as an employer, they cannot force
their workers to tell that they have disability but at
the same time, workers need to inform their limited
capability if it can affect their job.
Other than that, Accessible Ontario Customer
Service (2012) also gives some examples on how
employers can make changes when they hire
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